Amazing, if the plans to build limited numbers of Ropver V8 powered
MGBs is true (at #25,000 which IS about $45,000), what will that
mean to the value of similar vehicles (eg. TR-8). Seems to me
that if I was in the market for a car and I even thought about the
Rover powered "B", I'd be spending an awful lot of money to only end
up with something that is functionally and stylistically equivalent
to the TR-8. Don't believe it, compare:
New V8 MGB TR-8
Body, Vintage 1960/70s MGB Body, vintage 1970s TR-7
Well, chacun a son gout. I'd rather have an MGB-V8 than a TR-8, but
then I got dropped on my head in the Sixties instead of the Seventies,
I guess. :-)
Engine, Rover 3.9 L V8 Engine, Rover 3.5 L. V8
And on the one hand, the 3.9 will have electronically controlled, mass-
air-flow-sensor driven fuel injection. On the other, it'll be managed
by a Lucas microprocessor...
Price $45,000 Price $10-15,000 for used, but show
quality cars.
Warning. What follows will almost certainly be considered a flame
by many if not most people. There's no obscenity in it, but it's a
tad on the hot side. If all you want to do is find out about where
to get Whitworth wrenches or how to get the snaps to fit on your
new convertible top, delete this message NOW. It *is* about cars,
about British cars, and about why they are the way they are, so I
don't think it's inappropriate. You are welcome to disagree with
me, but if you do, you might want to reply to me only and not to
the list at large.
The idea of making a $45,000 MGB is one of the three or four most
mind-numbingly idiotic things I've ever heard of from the British
Phlegmsucking Leyland sphincters-with-legs. It not only misses
the point of the MG marque by several parsecs, it is philosophically,
technically, and personally abhorrent to me for a number of reasons.
The *whole point* of the MG marque, since the 1920s, was that the
cars were "cheap and cheerful." They were more expensive than the
run-of-the-mill family saloons and tourers that served as their
starting points, but they delivered performance far out of any
concern for their cost or their origins. Back when speed records
were meaningful, in the Thirties when not many cars would go 60 mph
except for Duesenbergs, Mercedes and Bugattis that all cost a king's
ransom, MGs captured records with under-1-liter cars that the average
bloke could afford to buy, with a little sacrifice here and there.
But a $45,000 MGB? That's just plain daffy. For starters, I could
build cars to the same specifications for probably under $20,000 --
and that's paying full retail for all the components -- *and* sell
them at a profit. Forty-five thousand dollars is price gouging,
it's making the car into a silly bauble that only monied wankers
will be able to afford, it's violating the whole history of the MG
name. It's offensive, dishonorable, and outrageous, turning a fine
if simple commodity sports car into a piece of window dressing for
wannabe upper-class twits of the year.
Furthermore, at that price I can imagine how the car will be equipped.
It will probably have multiadjustable articulated leather-covered
seats. It will probably have power steering, power brakes, a CD
player, air conditioning, electric windows, electric mirrors, remote
boot-lid release, a $2000 genuine mohair convertible top, and it will
weigh 2800 pounds. They'll probably try to "update" the car's looks
by giving it fender flares, monochrome trim, and 17" wheels, and
it'll end up looking like someone ran an MG through a pastel minitruck
factory, needing only the letters YO on the tailgate and a 6000-watt
subwoofer. The MGB is old-fashioned, its styling is from 1962; let
it rest in peace, and give us a new car.
What makes me angriest about this move is that what I think will
actually happen is that it will kill off any chance of getting
real MGs in the US again. The people who have that much money
won't want to spend it on a tarted-up version of a car they can
still buy for under $3000; it has no image recognition, no name
appeal, except to people who either know it's an egregious fake or
who think of MGs as their roommate's stupid car that was always
broken. So instead of doing what Enever and Thornley would have
been doing if the B(P)L management hadn't been trying to bugger
the marque in a misguided and failed attempt to forcefeed us
the TR7, which is produce a modern, mid-engined coupe with fully
independent suspension and gorgeous styling (in 1976, who's to
say what it would have evolved to by now), we get these retro-
crypto-snob-appealers trying to sell an impossible car in a
market that is getting tighter and tighter.
What the next MG should be is a Miata, but with character. A
reasonably priced, approximately $15,000 sports car, light and
nimble, in which the sensations of *making the car go* outweigh
anything else about it -- absolute performance, snob appeal,
price, whatever you can name.
The problem, I think, is that BL management finally learned the
error of their ways in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, when they refused
to let the MG develop along the lines its engineers had in mind
for it. In 1935, Abingdon produced a few prototypes of an
experimental car with fully independent suspension, a backbone
frame that looked uncannily like the one that Chapman designed
for the Elan, cockpit-adjustable suspension, a supercharger,
and a single-overhead-cam engine that had already proved itself
not only dominant in its class but far too quick for the chassis
of the day. At that critical evolutionary step, Len Lord, may
his eyeballs forever simmer in a lake of burning pitch stoked
by the cheers of the faithful, closed the MG competition department
and forced them to concentrate on commodity sports cars, on using
common mechanical components in special bodies to make saleable
workaday cars.
Those saleable workaday cars ended up being the best-selling sports
cars of all time, which was their glory and their curse. They sold
so well -- over half a million by the time of the MGB -- that the
ignorant management never let the models develop. The B was originally
designed with de Dion rear suspension; it was cancelled because the
unit cost would have been too high (ironic because had the parts
been amortized over 18 years and 500,000+ cars, it would have cost
no more than the suspension they used). The MGD was stillborn because
the "Bullet" came from a design office nearer to the hearts of the
soul-deadening hands that guided British Leyland by the mid-Seventies.
And while the open TR7 is merely an ungainly and dated relic, and
therefore worthy of someone's nonsensical love (which is the real
mark of a sports car, that you love it in spite of itself), the
TR7 coupe is a pointless, execrable study in how not to make a sports
car, a reverse-engineered Celica with all of the Toyota's lack of
charm and all of the British lack of function. It is probably not
the worst vehicle ever to be produced on the planet -- to take that
honor would require it having been produced on the opposite bank of
the English channel -- but it is certainly a candidate for the office.
Sometimes I consider the relative histories of MG and Porsche. MG
in the Thirties was in the same position as Porsche in the Fifties.
Both firms started small, making what amounted to hot-rod versions
of cheap, ubiquitous sedans but with modifications to the engine,
chassis, and bodywork to give styling, performance, and roadholding
that was orders of magnitude above their contemporaries, let alone
the pedestrian cars on which they were based. Both firms naturally
entered competition, learning from early failures and successes and
incorporating their lessons into subsequent production vehicles.
Both firms revised, refined, and forged each new vehicle as the
result of passionate, methodical, and dedicated engineering.
The 1935 independently-suspended R Type MG was, in many ways, like
the RSK Porsche spyder: a completely new chassis, a step away from
the Beetle-like floorpan of the 356 (sorry, Jeffie) or the whippy
ladder of various Morris models, replacing stiff axles with properly
articulated wheel placement, decidedly modern chassis rigidity,
and an eye towards evolution into even greater power outputs in
future revisions. And yes, most terms all apply to both cars.
(The key difference is that no movie stars got killed in the MG. :-)
And the Morris idiots killed the R Type, while the Porsche went on to
dominate motorsports and to become a symbol of excellence.
It is all too clear that the current generation of idiotic phlegmsuckers
in Cowley or wherever BL has its corporate hindquarters these days is
trying, with one model, to reverse the insipid stupidity of over 50 years
of bad management. It is equally clear that the model will fail, and
they will blame MG, and no one will profit except for those who will
take huge bonuses from the stock price fluctuation as this insane
project flutters in and out of the news for the next two years. And we
who would buy the cars in the millions if we had the chance to buy an
updated, modern, authentic MG will never have the chance to.
Much as most folks know my affinity for the Triumph marque, if I
had $45,000 to spend on a vehicle, I'd be shopping for a nice
(not show quality, but road worthy and nice to look at) Aston-Martin
DB-5.
Much as folks know my affinity for the MG marque, I'd have to agree.
(In fact, I have to say that a DB-5 would be one of the first things
I went to look at.)
No, I take it back. For $45,000 I'd buy a '67 E Type coupe and a
Lotus Seven, and I'd spend the remaining $15,000 on a trip to France
to see the 24 hours of Le Mans while a really good restoration shop
made my daily-driver 1971 MGB as good as new.
In short: Old MGBs are fine for what they are, an old car that has
enough basic amenities, performance, and durability to be usable as
a daily driver -- but it's still an old car. The new MGB is like
trying to make a goldfish out of a terrier: legs off, fins on, tube
through the back of the head so it can breathe, bit of gold paint,
make good.
--
"Some people put their hands in the dishes the moment they have sat
down. Wolves do that." -- Desiderius Erasmus
Scott Fisher/sfisher@wsl.pa.dec.com/DEC Western Software Labs/Palo Alto, CA
|